In Sturbridge, retirement community gives up sewer pipe dream

Mary M. Berry, manager of the Sturbridge Retirement Cooperative Corp., 1 Kelly Square, is banking on overwhelming support from the people of Sturbridge.

For the last eight years, Ms. Berry sought to have the 67-acre retirement community in the town’s special use district connected to town sewer lines. But now she has given up on the dream of being connected to town sewer, and is vigorously pursuing funding for an estimated $1.15 million on-site treatment plant.

“Connecting to town sewer is over and done with,” Ms. Berry said. “With the study and everything, they determined it would be too expensive and the town would not be able to do that.”

Selectmen plan to apply for a community development block grant from the state Department of Housing and Community Development to provide $620,000 toward the construction of the sewage pant, which the state has mandated.

All 273 residents of the retirement complex are seniors, and 90 percent of them have low or moderate incomes, Ms. Berry said.

The sewage project would involve no town funding, only support, Ms. Berry stressed. All she is looking for are signatures and addresses as a sign of support.

“At this point, this is simply about going after the grant,” Ms. Berry said. “But because it’s a town grant, they need to make sure whoever’s reading this grant needs to make sure and have the feeling that all the town residents have been involved in this and are aware of what’s going and are in favor of it, which is why we started this campaign to get signatures.”

For years, Ms. Berry sought a municipal tie-in to the town sewer system for 32,700 gallons per day, even though the actual flow on most days is about 20,000 gallons, she said.

In October 2009, David Prickett of Tighe & Bond Engineering Services and Public Works Director Gregory H. Morse estimated it would cost $4.3 million to $8 million to add town sewerage to the Route 15 corridor, which the Sturbridge Retirement Cooperative Corp. is a part of.

“What I was told and I asked several times and, in fact, that’s way down the road, the study shows that it was going to be approximately an $8 million project,” Ms. Berry said. “And they don’t think it is something that would go through at this point.”

The Sturbridge Retirement Cooperative Corp. is facing orders from the state Department of Environmental Protection to upgrade its septic systems because their daily flows exceed the Title 5 limit, which is 15,000 gallons per day.

“We just received a two-year extension on the consent order, but as time passes, it’s more and more unlikely that they’re going to continue to do this for us, and we are going to have to bite the bullet at some point,” Ms. Berry said. “So if the town is talking another six or seven years to connect us to sewer, it’s just too far down the road.”

Ms. Berry said this will be the third time the mobile home community has applied for this grant.

“We are trying to take care of some of the areas where we lost points last year, one of them being town support,” Ms. Berry said. “That is why we’re on a campaign to get signatures in support of the grant.”

Ms. Berry said another thing proponents are doing differently is requesting that a small portion of the grant ($100,000 of the proposed $900,000) go toward Brookfield, so they can call it a regional grant, which they hope will get more points.

Ms. Berry said if town residents have not been approached for their signature, they can still show their support by sending a “support” email with their full name and address to sturbridgecoop@verizon.net.